I found informative your explanation on the potential uselessness and even harm of KPIs. But I was wanting more information about the smart benchmarking you referred to. Do you make it quantifiable? How many metrics do you have (a few or more like a dozen)? How much time do you put into it as opposed to doing the actual work?

These are just some of the questions that immediately came up. I would be interested to read more on the model you are suggesting, if you're interesting in writing on it.